The Doom of the Reluctantly Loved
by FancyFreeThinker101
Summary: In which Gwen is tasteless and Bernard is indifferent and oh, woe, they're getting married. Companion oneshot to Woes of the Eternally Bored. Bernard/OC


_AN: Hi! Sorry, this refused to leave me alone...so, despite the fact that I have two other WiPs right now-if anyone's reading those, they are both to be updated quite shortly-I had to write it. Enjoy!_

The Doom of the Reluctantly Loved

It was fitting, in a sense, that it should be rainy that day.

"Bernard," said the Sharp minx's sister, the docile Felicity, "don't fidget, it's hard enough tying a tie as it is."

I merely sighed and became perfectly stationary; I had long since learned that, in matters of conjugal preparation, the typically quiet Felicity could exhibit considerable ferocity.

"Right."

"Try and smile," continued the older Sharp, biting absently at her lip as she straightened the tuxedo jacket. "It's the happiest day of your life. Try and look it."

I opened my mouth to question her definition of a "happy day" when the door opened and in swept Sharp herself, clad in a white dress which tied around the neck and her favorite pair of sneakers. Her sister, who, despite her flaws, seemed to possess the fundamental decency so lacking in Gwendolyn, looked simply appalled.

"Gwen! What in God's name are you wearing?"

"My dress," replied the Sharp minx, a trifle too innocently. "Why? Should I wear a tux like Bernard?"

"It wouldn't suit you," I replied, trying very hard not to think that Gwendolyn looked rather well in her dress, shoes notwithstanding.

"Oh, for God's _sake_," groaned the elder sibling, shutting her eyes very tightly and breathing very slowly. "Gwen, I have told you over and over—you are _not_ wearing those horrible things on your wedding day! Now go put on your heels—and anyway you shouldn't be _seen!_"

But the most audacious of minxes only laughed brightly and shrugged, saying:

"Oh, Fels, don't be such a stick. I don't care what tradition says, I'm not going to hide away in another room just so Bernard can gawk at me when the time comes. He's doing that quite well now," she added, shooting me that familiar, cheeky smirk. The temperature of the room skyrocketed at an alarming rate.

"I was not—"

"Your _shoes_, Gwendolyn," interrupted Felicity, silencing both of us. "You absolutely _have_ to change your shoes. Mom's going to have a _cow_ if she sees you in those."

"She won't notice, she'll be too busy thinking of all the lovely grandchildren Bernard and I will soon be having," retorted Sharp, with what I had to admit was a grain of veracity. The Sharp mother was indeed rather obsessed with being a Sharp grandmother—not that I was ever going to oblige her in that respect.

Children gave me a rash.

"Well, if she doesn't, everyone _else_ will, and I'm—Gwen, for pity's sake, stop flirting with him, you're going to mess up his tie."

"I hope to mess up a lot more than _that_," smirked Sharp, who was at the moment standing on tiptoe with one hand slipping into my hair.

I couldn't help but agree with this hope, even as heat surged quickly up the back of my neck…

"Besides," continued the Sharp minx, her other hand toying with my tie, verifying Felicity's predictions, "he seems to like it."

"Mm," I replied, my powers of speech rather poor at the moment…

"Felicity, dear, are you almost ready? I've been looking for Gwen to see how she's doing but I can't—Gwendolyn!"

It was with a faint blush and a rather reluctant sigh—which I certainly was not inwardly seconding—that Sharp loosed her siren grip on me and turned to her nag of a mother.

"Sorry, mum—Bernard and I just needed to…talk."

"Mm-_hmmmm_," replied she of the eternal thirst for grandchildren. "Gwendolyn, _really_, _try_ and behave, the whole family is here…you're not even supposed to _see_ Bernard yet…and why haven't you put on your heels yet?"

"Not wearing them," said the impudent Sharp child, shrugging as she studied her scuffed, brightly colored footwear. "I like these better—besides, Mum, you know how I am in heels."

The minx had a point; when it came to balancing herself in the spiky contraptions she was an insult to her sex.

"But Gwen dear, you really—I mean, it's not exactly—well, people would—"

"Talk?" finished Sharp, raising her reddish eyebrows with an expression of cheerful indifference. "If people have nothing better to talk about than my choice of footwear on my wedding day, then my God, this town needs more help than I thought."

"Oh, _alright_," conceded the maternal Sharp, sighing with an exasperation I was rather familiar with as well.

It was part and parcel of dealing with Gwendolyn.

"If you won't wear them, you won't wear them. But twenty years from now you're going to wonder what on earth possessed you to wear those things on your wedding day."

I raised an eyebrow.

"I doubt that. Sharp will hardly have gained that much taste in twenty years."

Gwendolyn laughed, as unbothered as ever by my remarks in regards to her lack of decency.

Some things would never change.

"You heard Bernard," she said cheerfully, one hand slipping underneath my jacket and feeling my back through the suddenly rather thin shirt… "I'll be tasteless forever. Now go on, the both of you, and let me have a moment with my husband. After that, I'll sit as still as you like and you can do stupid things to my hair. I know you want to."

Both of them, Felicity in particular, being delighted by this proposition, Gwendolyn and I were very soon quite alone in the room, and within a moment Sharp was smiling at me in that way which boded no good.

"Nervous?" she said, sitting on a nearby table and swinging her legs as blithely as if we were merely at the museum again. I shook my head, taking care to twist my mouth into an expression of total disdain.

The thought that Gwendolyn could inspire _nervous_ feelings in me was reprehensible…not to mention utterly absurd.

And even allowing the inane supposition that it _were_ true, I certainly wasn't going to flatter the chit by telling her so.

"Hardly. I think 'resigned' is more appropriate."

She laughed again, taking hold of my tie (the table on which she sat was quite near me) and pulling me to her.

"You should be," she said, that familiar, mischievous expression in her eyes. "You should be wildly nervous."

"Why?" I said, keeping my tone as deadpan as possible. Gwendolyn's smile widened; I fought the urge to swallow hard.

"Because," she said lightly, wrapping her legs very loosely around my waist and her arms considerably more tightly about my neck, "I hate to break it to you, but the meek, dutiful little Martha you've come to know is just a ruse. I'm actually rather mental."

I suppressed a snort.

"Imagine that."

"Mmm," she murmured, both hands running along my back. "Crazy, isn't it? But you're stuck with me now, so you may as well get used to the idea."

She punctuated her statement by touching her mouth lightly to my jaw, whereupon I couldn't seem to suppress the shiver that ran through me…

"Sharp…your harlotry is not…appreciated…"

In reply, the minxette took my face in both hands and leaned in very, very, very close…my respirations became woefully uneven…

"You're adorable," she said quietly, smiling at me. A reply was, at this stage of the game, quite hopeless; I concentrated my faculties rather on not bursting into flame.

Her eyes were large and bright and unusually soft; closing the distance—what little remained of it—between us, she kissed me very, very slowly.

"Bernard?" she murmured, after several moments.

"Mmmmmmm?"

Her tongue very gently traced the inner curve of my mouth; my spine seemed to liquefy at an astounding speed.

"I can't _wait_ to be married to you."

An hour later, the sacred noose was quite ready to receive my all-too-resigned neck. Gwendolyn had been seated, more or less submissively, between her mother and sister, and I had not seen her since. The Sharp Father, a curious, absent man from whom Gwendolyn had possibly inherited her less sane tendencies, had peeked in once or twice to exchange a tidbit of conversation and a rather vague smile. The Niece, to whose name I was not quite accustomed, had poked her own wild head in on occasion, mostly to peek at me through her hair and stare around her. The third time this happened, she spoke.

"Uncle Bernard?"

I flinched reflexively at the loathsome appellation, thinking with a shudder that in less than an hour, it would indeed be applicable…

These were dark days.

"What?"

She looked at me with that odd, thoughtful expression occasionally worn by her aunt and said slowly:

"You—you look very….sharp today."

Briefly, I considered a pun…but before I could make even the feeblest play on words she was saying reflectively:

"Aunt Gwen looks very pretty today, doesn't she, Uncle Bernard?"

"She's more adequate than usual, I suppose."

She acted as if I hadn't said this.

"I'm glad you're marrying Aunt Gwen. She likes you."

"I'm aware," I mumbled, willing my face not to heat up at this stating of the all too obvious. "Your aunt is hardly known for her subtlety."

"Where are you taking her for your honeymoon, Uncle Bernard?"

My neck warmed rapidly at the word 'honeymoon', and I stared at her hard for a moment, trying to detect a false note in that pale, serious face. Finding none, I deadpanned:

"A hotel, I suppose."

"So you're staying in Metro City?"

"Clearly."

"What are you going to do with her on your honeymoon, Uncle Bernard?"

The heat in my neck intensified very quickly, stealing into my hairline; I shot her another look, again meeting that childish innocence.

Some chits were too curious for their own good.

I settled on an appropriately vague generalization.

"Things."

"What kind of things?"

The hot sensation was up to the crown of my head by now; I blinked, trying to block out the images which plagued me routinely…

"All sorts of things."

"Are you going to talk to her?"

I couldn't _quite_ suppress the thought that, if things went well, Gwendolyn and I would be talking very little. I made my answer accordingly.

"If there's time."

Rocking back and forth on her heels, the littlest Sharp minx went on:

"Are you going to kiss her?"

Really, the impudence of children these days was astonishing. Settling on the old fallback, I replied:

"Only if she makes me."

"I bet she will," said the apparently shameless offspring of my—oh, God—fiance's sister. "Aunt Gwen likes to kiss you."

I sighed. I knew this all too well.

"I've noticed."

At this inauspicious break in the conversation, the tranquil voice of Mr. Sharp called:

"Marianne, your mother's looking for you."

Oh, thank God. Looking rather disappointed that her interrogation was to be thus abridged, the littlest Sharp sighed and scampered dutifully off, leaving me grateful for the silence.

One could only conjecture how little of it there would be afterward.

I was somehow not prepared when she came up the aisle.

It was not, I reflected, that she looked particularly—different. Sharp was still Sharp, in essence: she still had a lot of hair—though it was loose and wavier than usual, curling at the ends—and the big hazel eyes. There was still the laughter—the everlasting laughter

I somehow foresaw I'd never be able to get rid of that.

It was disturbing how little I minded.

The point was that Sharp had not changed outrageously for her nuptials; despite the long white dress and the flowers (yellow roses; how oddly fitting) and the hair, she was still Gwendolyn Sharp, still the rail-sitting, leg-swinging, dignity-lacking minx to whom I had become….accustomed.

So it was odd that I should find myself staring at her, embarrassing how difficult it was to tear my eyes from her big, bright ones…

Oh, God. I was becoming—most horrible of fates—_sentimental_.

She, for her part, was smiling the widest I'd ever seen her smile, a suspicious wetness around the corners of her eyes as she, completely out of time with the music, came tripping up the aisle in her heedless, headlong way, sprinting the last few steps and grabbing both of my hands tightly in hers.

"Greetings," I said, murmuring the first thing which wandered into my scrambled mind. She grinned.

"Hey, Bernard."

Then, with an impish little smirk, she said:

"You're smiling, you know. Better stop, or no one in my family will recognize you."

I did my best to stifle the offending facial expression as quickly as possible; God only knew the slippery slope over which I teetered.

Gwendolyn ran the tips of her fingers lightly over my mouth; I swallowed.

"You look nice," she said quietly, still with that audacious glint in her rather damp eyes. I did my damndest to suppress an appalling blush as I replied stonily:

"What else is new."

She giggled, squeezing my hand hard. It took me a moment to realize that I was clinging to hers with equal force.

"…for better or for worse, for rich or for poor, till death do you part?"

I stopped for a moment, considering the crossroads before me. There was still time. If I wanted, I could still retreat to the closed safety of my old life, to the solitude and the lack of so many worrying feelings…

But Sharp stared up at me with wide, bright, trustful eyes and I found myself saying, almost involuntarily:

"…I suppose."

"And do you, Gwendolyn Catherine Sharp, take Bernard…"

She barely allowed the man to finish his rather unnecessary inquiry.

"Damn straight."

Some distance off, Felicity Abramson put her head in her hands.

"…you may kiss the bride."

Here came the difficult part. I nodded and leant stiffly in, hoping that Sharp could, just this once, suppress her wantonness…

Gwendolyn, as it seemed, would do no such thing. Throwing both arms around my neck (quite heedless of the flowers of course, the thoughtless female), she proceeded to quite outdo herself in terms of previous tastelessness and kissed me lingeringly, twining both hands in my hair and running them along my neck as I tried to recall the process of respiration…

When the snickers of those watching grew too loud even for Sharp's taste, we broke apart; Sharp flushed and smoothed her skirts, smirking a mile wide.

"Nervous yet?"

"You know," mused Sharp, she to whom I was now eternally bound, "you look incredibly do-able right now."

I stiffened, flushed, and sighed, keeping my face as immobile as possible. Even in the middle of the disgustingly conventional "first dance", the minx was totally lacking in decency.

"Sharp, try and restrain yourself. I hardly think your niece needs an impromptu lesson in sexual education."

She snickered.

"Maybe not…but I wouldn't mind one."

Breathing was abruptly an exercise requiring great skill; attempting without success to block the wild assault of…rather appealing images of myself rendering such a lesson, I decided not to favor such inanities with a reply.

Gwendolyn, meanwhile, leaned her head against my neck and smiled.

"I love you, Bernard."

That peculiar, light sensation which always accompanied her saying those words came over me, and I couldn't stop the involuntary "love you too" from leaving my mouth…

And, as sneaker-clad, crumple-skirted Sharp slipped her arms lightly around my neck, I decided that as Fate had tossed me into the wild storm that was existence with Gwendolyn Sharp, I may as well gird my loins and make the best of it.

After all, as she had, with characteristic cheekiness, observed: there was no getting rid of her now.

_AN: Review? Yes? Please?_


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